43 SCRAPS OF LOCAL HISTORY. 



and ornamental trees, and i)eaco ks and different fancy fowl 

 wandering about in tbo garden. 



GENERAL HISTORY. 



When I came here, the Custom House, a red building, 1% 

 stories, stood on the bank in front of Capt. Wm. Fenton's, between 

 the road and the river, with a balcony on the East side, with a 

 rough plank stairway to it, giving an excellent view down the 

 river, so that you could see from there the ships when they came 

 round Sheldrake Island. At that time ships, or rather what we 

 called Geordie brigs, with large ports at the bows, loaded square 

 timber, mostly. They loaded in the stream and t'ie timber was 

 taken out to them in rafts of ten to fifteen pieces at a time, towed 

 out with raft boats from deposits on the shore at different places, 

 and they took from two to three weeks to load a shix) or brig. 

 At that time the business part of the town was largely between 

 St. Andrew's st. and Middle Island. The old Richibucto 

 Road came out at St. Andrew's st. corner, and the 

 present road, which diverged from it at Kerr's place 

 in Napan, was not cut through and turn piked 



until 1838. The great bulk of the timber business on the South 

 side of the river at that time was carried on by Cunard and the 

 Willistons of Bay du Vin, several brothers, w^ho dealt with and 

 depended upon Cunard for supplies and a market. The getting 

 of the timber from Bay du Vin to town was quite an event and 

 took from two to three weeks according to the direction of the 

 ■wind. They were towed up along the shore by horses and oxen, 

 and when they came to bights in the shore, like the one between 

 Point aux Car and Pt. Cheval, they waited till the wind came in 

 the right direction and then they put the horses up on the timber 

 rafts and pulled across to the next point, while the oxen plodded 

 around by the shore, through mud and mire. These delays, 

 waiting for wind, w^ere filled up by potations of Jamaica rum, so 

 that the time did not hang heavy on their heads. On the 

 arrival of the rafts at Chatham, the raftsmen's headquarters 

 were at the Bremner Hotel, a two-story building that stood by 

 the roadside, near the large willow tree in front of John and 

 Philii) Bremner 's new- cottage. The timber was placed in a 

 boom, which extended from Bremner 's to the front of St. 



i 



